# Synodical Conference Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1904_S13
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

of the Ev. Luth. Synodical Conference of North America. 1904. 13

But whoever desires Holy Communion must be able to examine himself, and where it is evident that he cannot do this, the Sacrament cannot be given to him on account of the οὕτως [so].

Spener writes of this: "Such authority of judgment of the preachers consists not in a jurisdiction and a court of their own over the confessants, but in the preaching of the Law and Gospel, that it inform the consciences what is required for fitness for Holy Communion, and how they find this in themselves or not; hence they draw the conclusion rather logice [logically] than judicialiter [judicially] about them, whether, so far as the preacher can discern, they have such fitness or not."

Such cases, where a preacher must pass logice [logically] the judgment that someone lacks the fitness to partake of the Sacrament of the Altar, can be of various kinds. The bodily and mental condition of the persons concerned can and must demand such a judgment.

Thus Gerhard writes of the raving and the insane that such persons, "if they have lucid intervals, may not be excluded from the use of Holy Communion, provided that by indubitable signs they show the necessary self-examination." Gerhard thus rightly regards insane people as such as cannot examine themselves and to whom the Sacrament is therefore to be refused. But if they have lucid moments, it may be given to them. But he demands of the preacher that he convince himself of the people's ability to examine themselves.

To the sick and dying who are already in an unconscious state and thus can no longer examine themselves, the Sacrament may not be given, precisely because they can no longer examine themselves, even though they may have been faithful, sincere Christians all their lives. What Luther writes in the year 1544 to Lauterbach holds, concerning those who put off taking the Sacrament until the last moment of their life. There it says among other things: "That if anyone has put off the Sacrament so long that reason and senses already fail him, the Sacrament can be given him just as little as to a swine and a dog. For with these one cannot treat of repentance or question them as to what they believe and do. We are commanded not to cast the holy thing before the dogs and the pearls before the swine. So we admonish our people, and so we do." (XXI, 1527 f.) Luther sees, then, in Christ's prohibition to give the Sacrament to those who manifestly receive it unworthily, and in the Apostle's demand on communicants to examine themselves, a command to the preachers to give the Sacrament only to those who can examine themselves. To give it to such as cannot examine themselves means to cast it before the swine.

Why do we not give the Sacrament to children? The LORD Christ does say of them that they believe in Him. He sets them so high,